Associates

Alfredo @ San Francisco, USA

Alfredo Sfeir is the founder and president of Shellcatch, which focuses on improving the lives of fishers by connecting them to a sustainable and productive chain of certified ocean products. Access to mobile technology and local markets can give fishermen a strategic commercial advantage, and improve their income while protecting their coasts. At the core of Shellcatch is an advanced traceability system that integrates cutting edge wireless technologies to trace fish from the boat through the landing and the production process. Shellcatch provides a service to consumers, restaurants, intermediaries, and governments for full source verification traceability. Shellcatch is currently servicing fishing cooperatives in Chile that represent over 1500 fishers that commercialize over 15 species, and has established relationships with a suite of Chilean and international distributors and exporters. It also has active projects in Mexico and Peru. Prior to Shellcatch, Alfredo started two successful social ventures in Chile and was the Managing Director of Endeavor-Chile, Inc., a leading global high-impact entrepreneurship organization.

Damien @ San Francisco, USA

Damien Newman is the founding principal of Central, a design consultancy that helps organizations create impact through design and innovation. Damien frequently writes, speaks, and lectures about the value of the design process and innovation. For over two decades, Damien has practiced design across a variety of disciplines: graphic, interaction, brand, retail experience, and organizational design. He partners with organizations to identify the challenges of the future and use the design process, methods, and tools to understand conditions of change. With that knowledge, Damien focuses on to creating innovative products, services, and systems. Prior to Central, Damien worked at the global design consultancy IDEO as a Brand Strategist, was a Director of Strategy for Frog Design, and was a Brand Strategist and Creative Integrator at the interaction design consultancy Studio Archetype. His projects have spanned Asia, Europe, and the United States. Recent projects have included work with NHN Korea, Pepsi, and Silverado Winery. He recently led a research and design project in collaboration with Ashoka and the David & Lucile Packard Foundation to develop sustainable solutions for the future of the fishing industry. In 2003, he published the Designer’s Guide to Brand Strategy, which has been downloaded over 30,000 times. Damien also teaches at the Stanford Graduate School for Design.

DREW @ SALT lAKE CITY, USA

Drew Braithwaite is the COO of Chapul, a food company committed to introducing a more sustainable protein source, in the form of crickets, into the Western diet. Prior to Chapul, he worked as an operations executive for environmental and mission-driven organizations in rural Tanzania, Haiti, and Park City, Utah. Drew has extensive experience implementing solutions to complex environmental challenges, and a particular interest in harnessing the power of entrepreneurship to drive environmental innovation. Drew earned a B.S. in Environmental Science from Utah State University, and a MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Drew has worked with ACS and Shellcatch in Chile on projects and ventures designed to create new economic opportunities for small-scale fishing communities that also deliver biodiversity co-benefits.

Chris @ Hobart, australia

Chris Wilcox Ph.D. is a Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, stationed in Hobart, Tasmania. His research covers a wide range of topics in population management including control of invasive species, conservation of threatened biodiversity, and management of commercial and recreational harvesting. His work integrates field data, statistical analysis and predictive models to synthesize information to support decision-making. His research is currently focused in two primary areas: a) evaluation of sources, impacts and solutions for plastic pollution in the ocean; and b) development of improved analytical tools for addressing illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing.

Cristían @ Santiago, Chile

Cristián Pérez-Navarro is an Architectural Designer and Urbanist, with over 15 years of architectural design and sustainable urban planning experience in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He has worked in Paris with Renzo Piano (Pritzker Prize laureate and sustainable design pioneer), and was an Associate Partner with ZGF Architects in Washington, USA. In 2010, Cristián founded Global·Nomad, a platform to accelerate sustainable land planning, low environmental impact building design, and resilient communities. Cristián focuses on creating and mixing tools to empower collaboration and co-creation, and using entrepreneurship as a strategy for result-driven "bottom-up" development, both in urban and high environmental value regions of the Americas.

GLORIA @ CORDOBA, SPAIN

Gloria M. Luque, PhD is ACS's lead scientist. She also holds a research position with the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) at University of South Paris. Her research interests include the ecology of social species, invasive biology, species conservation, and climate change. She earned a Ph.D. from University of Cordoba, and held a post-doctoral position at Ohio State University and a Marie Curie Fellowship at University of South Paris. She provides statistical, modeling, and scientific support to ACS's projects. Recent work with ACS includes leading expert elicitation surveys and return on investment analyses for marine and coastal conservation. Gloria is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. She is based in Cordoba, Spain.

María @ Cordoba, Spain

María Ojeda is an information technology specialist that focuses on design. She supports ACS with web-based survey design. She earned a computer programming and teaching degree from University of Grenada. She teaches computer programming in multiple locations throughout Andalusia, Spain.

MARÍA JOSE @ LIMA, PERU

María Jose Carreras has broad experience developing investment projects for biodiversity conservation and monitoring and management plans in Latin America. In Peru, she has led several biodiversity assessments focused on national and international compliance standards (e.g., IFC’s Performance Standards, Equator Principles). She is currently working on her graduate degree at Cornell University, where she is researching the role and performance of biodiversity offsets in Latin America. María Jose has been involved in social and environmental projects throughout Latin America, including Peru and Ecuador. She has been working with ACS on projects focused on biodiversity offset policies and marine spatial planning in Latin America.

Mike @ Blacksburg, USA

Michael Sorice, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources & Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech University. His research focuses on individual and group human behavior as it relates to environmental stewardship and conservation. His work is situated in the social dilemma framework in which conservation over the long term is considered essential to sustaining human well-being; yet, people opt instead for their short-term self interest. He has experience in a wide variety of topics including outdoor recreation, nature-based tourism, ecosystem-based management, endangered species, and private lands conservation. For the past ten years, Michael has been applying social-psychological theories and methodologies to natural resource issues to assist with conservation-related planning and decision-making. He travels regularly to Cambodia to visit his in-laws.

Stefan @ Santiago, Chile

Stefan Gelcich Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Pontifica Universidad de Chile where he studies the social-ecological dimensions of environmental conservation and marine fisheries management. He is also a researcher with the Laboratorio Internacional en Cambio Global where he works on threats and impacts of global drivers on ecosystem services. Much of Stefan’s work is focused on the interplay between ecological and governance determinants in implementing and effectively managing protected areas. He also has a long-standing interest on the links between fisheries management, biodiversity conservation, and environmental attitudes of stakeholders. Stefan’s conservation efforts have generally involved the creation of demonstration-scale experiments and learning platforms for conservation. Foremost among these has been the creation of a new conservation model in Chile that involves the participation of fisher unions, academics, and local councils in the creation of protected areas. He is a regional councilor for Global Green Grants, an environmental NGO that awards small grants to grassroots movements engaging in environmental issues, and was recently awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation.

Tom @ San Francisco, USA

Tom Gorton is a strategic designer focused on leveraging design-based thinking towards identifying and developing innovative and effective solutions to environmental, social, and commercial challenges. Tom's business and design leadership capabilities, combined with his creative intuition and skills, enable him to be an effective and energizing contributor within any problem-solving situation. Over the past seventeen years, in addition to his strategy-focused work, Tom has also designed a wide range of successful brand identities, products, interactive experiences and print-based products.

Viviana @ Ithaca, USA

A native of Costa Rica, Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, Ph.D. is an ornithologist whose research focuses on the impacts of environmental changes on bird populations in Latin America. She is a staff quantitative ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Prior to returning to Cornell, where she earned her Ph.D., she was a senior scientist at Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory and a researcher in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University. Viviana spends much of her time supporting capacity building efforts of the Lab's Neotropical Conservation Initiative Program.